Ministers question future of Afghan mission

Cabinet ministers have begun to question the future of Britain's combat mission in Afghanistan as pressure on Gordon Brown mounts over the conflict, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.

A coffin containing Lance Corporal George Davey who was killed while serving with the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment is carried during a repatriation ceremony Photo: Christopher Pledger

By Patrick Hennessy, Sean Rayment and David Harrison

8:30PM GMT 07 Nov 2009

Senior Labour figures close to the Prime Minister have spoken about fears and "frustrations" over the "trajectory" of the campaign, which has claimed the lives of 231 British troops since 2001.

Their comments followed last week's public comments from Kim Howells, the former Foreign Office minister who is now Mr Brown's intelligence and security watchdog, who called last week for the "great majority" of Britain's 9,000-strong force in Afghanistan to be withdrawn.

As pressure grew on the Prime Minister to plot a firmer strategy and timetable for the UK mission, the British commander of the unit which lost five men last week after they were shot by a rogue Afghan policeman spoke for the first time of the "monstrous" and "treacherous" act.

Lieutenant Colonel Roly Walker, who leads the 1st battalion Grenadier Guards, said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that the dead men would never be forgotten – but vowed to continue with the task of taking the fight to the Taliban.

A new poll today shows a fresh drop in public support for the Afghan conflict with nearly two-thirds of voters believing it to be a lost cause.

Some 64 per cent of those quizzed in a ComRes survey for the BBC One Politics Show today felt the war was "unwinnable" while 63 per cent thought British troops should be withdrawn as quickly as possible.

A cabinet minister told The Sunday Telegraph of the "dissatisfaction" among Labour MPs and added that Mr Howells knew there were many others in the party who shared his views.

He said: "There are some in the cabinet who are unhappy and nervous about our mission and there is growing frustration about the trajectory of the campaign. The lack of any obvious progress is another factor.

"We are told we are not going to withdraw but there does not appear to be any alternative."

Another cabinet member, close to Mr Brown, said: "We didn't get into this war to create the new state of Afghanistan. What we want to do is to leave. There are problems. All our advice rightly shows us that there are clear links between what we are doing there and our own national security.

"But on a day-to-day basis nobody knows why we are there. We need to communicate this more effectively."

Last week Mr Brown tried to regain the initiative on Afghanistan when he delivered a speech telling Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, to deliver an end to the corruption which has plagued his government and contributed to the danger to British forces.

He said: "We cannot, must not, and will not walk away."

But the Prime Minister found himself under attack from senior former military leaders with Lord Guthrie, ex-chief of the defence staff, accusing him of "dithering" over a pledge to send 500 extra British troops to Afghanistan.

Ministers supporting Mr Brown, however, hit back by attempting to pin the blame on Barack Obama, the US President, for failing to act on a top-level recommendation to send 40,000 extra American forces.

A senior source at the Ministry of Defence said: "Even if we wanted to change our strategy, how could we when Obama is keeping us in limbo over his plans. There is a great deal of frustration both here and over the road [The Foreign Office] about this."